Review of 1068 Cases of Appendicectomies Admitted to Department of Surgery-Tripoli Central Hospital

Abstract

Acute appendicitis is a very common surgical emergency and in spite of the advances in the diagnostic tools the diagnosis of acute appendicitis is based to a large extent on the clinical assessment. We studied the diagnosis of acute appendicitis in our set up. 1068 cases were retrospectively reviewed, the accuracy of our clinical diagnosis was about 86%, and the rate of normal appendicectomies was about 14%; the overall complication rate was about 11.8% and the mortality rate was 0.09%. The main complication was wound infection. Our drawbacks were mainly related to the lack of proper documentation about the location of the appendix and the reporting of mesenteric lymphadenitis and the very few appendices sent for histopathology.